The finance minister also sought to turbo-charge the government's objective of maximising cashless transactions with institutional support that included waiving all duties on point-of-sale (PoS) machines and biometric readers, improving rural digital infrastructure, tax breaks, cash incentives and easier loans based on digital transactions history.

To bring about structural reforms, a Payments Regulatory Board will be created in the Reserve Bank of India. The governor and deputy governor of RBI will be on this Board.

Sops have been lined up too. The government has announced a 'referral bonus scheme' for individuals and a cashback scheme for merchants who use the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app.

On the tax front, the Budget encourages small businesses (with turnover up to Rs 2 crore) by reducing presumptive income tax to 6% on non-cash receipts against 8% at present.

The focus of digital transaction is on rural and semi-urban areas through post offices, fair price shops and banking correspondents. Petrol pumps, fertilizer depots, municipalities, block offices, road transport offices, universities, colleges, hospitals and other institutions will also be encouraged, and possibly rule-bound at some point of time, to have facilities for digital payments. "A proposal to mandate all government receipts through digital means, beyond a prescribed limit, is under consideration," Jaitley said.

Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) will be encouraged to refinance credit institutions that provide unsecured loans, at reasonable interest rates, to borrowers based on their electronic payment transaction history.

Himanshu Pujara, managing director, Euronet Services India said the measures would allow people in rural areas, those "beyond the 15% data-enabled smartphone users and mobile subscribers across the country" to become a part of the digital payments ecosystem.